MY RAW FOOD journey

"Think clean, fresh, raw and vibrant! It is true, you are what you eat. BE clean, fresh, raw and vibrant. Live raw4ever!"

Today, I am a mother of 4, wife, artist, lawyer, truth seeker, raw food chef, yogi and lover of life. I know who I am and I know my purpose in life. I have a message to share with anyone who cares to listen - be true to yourself, treat yourself with respect and love yourself from the inside out. If you take this message to heart, eating substandard food makes no sense at all. I've learned over the years that the best thing you can do for yourself is to treat your body, heart, mind and soul like a temple. Put only what is pristine and honest into your body, your heart, your mind and your soul. Eat clean. Love clean. Think clean. Be clean.

But it wasn't always this clear for me. I have been a vegan for 27 years and a raw foodie for 20+ years of my 43 years of life! I began my journey as a vegan at the very tender age of 14. Growing up in an italian house-hold meant that I was eating very typical italian food on a daily basis, including pasta, meat and lots of dairy! While the food was nothing less than yummy, sometime around my first year of high school, I knew I had to make a change ...

For no other reason than, it just felt right, I decided to become a vegan. I think I was always a vegan in my heart. I consider myself to be a highly compassionate and sensitive individual and the idea of killing animals for our consumption just never made sense to me. I have always been highly conscious of the need to respect our planet, all living creatures and the need to respect our bodies and ourselves. Being vegan is the perfect expression of all of these things. And so, literally overnight, I made the switch! I did not know what I was doing, or what I was getting into. It just happened.

I began by refraining from eating animal foods. That meant no meat, no dairy and no fish. I was giving my digestive system a much needed break, but it didn't necessarily mean I was eating healthy all the time. In fact, I was rarely eating healthy. First off, I rarely ate fresh fruits and vegetables. My diet focused almost entirely on grains and heavily processed soy products. I was brainwashed into thinking that I needed to supplement with a lot of soy to ensure that I was getting sufficient protein in my diet. Needless to say, the grains and soy caused havoc in my tummy. I was a happy vegan with a very unhappy tummy ...

For the next 10 years or so, I experimented with various forms of the vegan lifestyle, including fat free, sugar free, gluten free, soy free and even allergen free. However, my tummy was never free from discomfort - even on a completely allergen free diet, I was still experiencing a lot of gas and bloating. Also, I struggled with weight management. I had inherited a poor body image growing up in a society where women are exposed to unhealthy models of what a woman's body should look like. I was intent on being thin. Even as a vegan, I found it difficult to keep up with this unrealistic standard. Overall, this caused unhappiness in my life. I wondered why humans seemed to be the only species on earth that struggle with their weight and why wild animals don't suffer from the major diseases that plague most of our society? Do animals know something we don't - I thought? Down deep, I knew the solution lied with the simple truth. ... I was searching for the truth.

Literally at my wits end, one very late night while surfing on the internet at the age of 23, I came across a website discussing the living plant foods lifestyle. A light bulb went on. I was fascinated! It all made sense to me. Eat food the way nature presents it. Eat green leaves. Eat fruit. Eat vegetables. Eat nuts and seeds. Eat these foods as they are. Be like the frugivores we are designed to be. Do like the animals do - do not heat or alter the food. Experience an unaltered existence! Eat raw plant food in abundance.

I was hooked! I became raw overnight! I tossed every pan or pot in my cupboard in minutes, I was charged with so much inspiration and energy and didn't sleep. I filled my fridge with fruits and vegetables the next morning and began to eat it all. I didn't know what I was doing ... but I knew it was right. Almost immediately I began to reap the benefits of eating exclusively raw plant food. I lost excess weight within weeks - the weight actually melted off me it happened so quickly, my skin began to glow, my eyes were brighter, my thoughts were clearer and I experienced a level of energy like never before! But more importantly, my tummy was settled at last. I felt a peace come over me that is inexplicable. My battle with diets and my body had finally come to an end. For the first time in my life I cared not for my exterior appearance, but began to care for my internal health and well being. I surrendered to nature. I put my faith in nature. ...the rest is history.

I have been adhering to a raw vegan lifestyle (anywhere from 90-100% raw on any given day) for the last 20 years. But for a short stint when I returned to cooked food at a time when I experienced self-doubt, I have remained true to this way of living each and every day. I stray from raw food only in social settings when its less important for me to be strictly raw and more important for me to socialize with friends and family. One of the hardest aspects of being raw is the social factor. Over the years I have learned that the solution is being flexible and not taking it too seriously all the time. After all, what you do most of the time will have the biggest impact on your health. That said, the only compromise I make is eating the occasional cooked vegetable. This way of living, just makes sense to me. Refraining from feeding off of other animals for our own selfish consumption and avoiding altering nature's bounty by heating or over processing food, is the plain truth for me.

Fruits, vegetables, green leaves, nuts and seeds, in their pure and unaltered state, are "happy food" because they do not tax the human body, they do not burden the environment, they do not cause pain for other creatures and, most of all, make you feel happy from the inside out! It is a diet about peace and compassion at a time when the world could use a lot less quarreling and a lot more love. It is that simple.

I hope I can share my enthusiasm for the living plant food cuisine with you here at www.raw4ever.com. Also, check out some of my favourite websites (see below) that share this very same philosophy. Peace and love to you.